THERE SEEMED TO BE NO ESCAPE. On May 24, 1940, some 400,000 Allied troops lay pinned against the coast of Flanders near the French port of Dunkirk. Hitler’s advancing tanks were only ten miles away. There was virtually nothing in between.
Yet the trapped army was saved. By June 4—just eleven days later—over 338,000 men had been evacuated safely to England in one of the great rescues of all time. It was a crucial turning point in World War II.
‘So long as the English tongue survives,’ proclaimed the New York Times, ‘the word Dunkerque will be spoken with reverence.’ Hyperbole, perhaps, but certainly the word—the event—has lived on. To the British, Dunkirk symbolizes a generosity of spirit, a willingness to sacrifice for the common good. To Americans, it has come to mean Mrs. Miniver, little ships, The Snow Goose, escape by sea. To the French, it suggests bitter defeat; to the Germans, opportunity forever lost.
There’s an element of truth in all these images, but they fail to go to the heart of the matter. It is customary to look on Dunkirk as a series of days. Actually, it should be regarded as a series of crises. Each crisis was solved, only to be replaced by another, with the pattern repeated again and again. It was the collective refusal of men to be discouraged by this relentless sequence that is important.
Seen in this light, Dunkirk remains, above all, a stirring reminder of man’s ability to rise to the occasion, to improvise, to overcome obstacles. It is, in short, a lasting monument to the unquenchable resilience of the human spirit.